This week we have had the unhappy task of watching a World Series of Poker champion slip away. Poker Pro, WSOP bracelet holder, and former Player of the Year, Amir Vahedi, passed away on January 8th from diabetes related complications. Despite a very successful career, one where he has won over 3 million dollars playing poker, people didn’t hear much about this particular poker player. He had never been on Poker After Dark, never showed up on a reality television show, and never had to be calmed down and coerced back to the table after suffering a bad beat during a hand of holdem. As a poker pro, all he seemed to do was show up, win money, and do so in a gracious and polite manner.
Because we live in a world where the squeaky wheel gets all the media grease, chances are casual poker fans are not aware of Amir. He simply didn’t get as much ink as the type of guy who arrives at WSOP events with a large number of scantily clad women; each representing a World Series of Poker bracelet in their possession. The fact that the spotlight rarely fell on him, does not diminish the skill of this poker player. The native of Tehran, Iran earned his WSOP bracelet by winning a No limit holdem event in 2003. He also was made two different Player of the Year lists in his short life. In 2001 he was given Texas Holdem Player of the Year honors, and two years later he shared the Card Player Magazine’s Player of the Year award with Men Nguyen. Amir also had a brush with celebrity poker in his career as well. While he, himself, didn’t show up on any of show that featured television stars playing poker, he did help train actor Ben Affleck in the finer points of the game.
It is a shame that we lost Amir so early in his life. 58 may be ancient if you are Dark Ages farmer, but in today’s world it is the prime of life. Perhaps he was so successful in life because of his approach to it. He once remarked "If you want to live, you can't be afraid to die." Hopefully he wasn’t and is now in a much better place.
